Honour Among Thieves
by chaletian
Summary: Which of you two criminals took my damn milk?


**Honour Among Thieves**

_**by Liss Webster**_

It started with a twenty-million-dollar Van Gogh painting.

No, wait, back up. That's not true. Really, it started with a carton of 2% milk.

oOo

"Where's my milk?" demanded Hardison, wandering out of the office kitchen, a bowl clutched in his hand.

"Huh?" said Eliot, flicking through a magazine, clearly paying no attention.

"What milk?" asked Parker brightly.

"My damn milk!" repeated Hardison, thrusting his bowl under Eliot's nose, only to prudently remove it when Eliot actually looked up. "I had a carton in the fridge for my Lucky Charms, and now it's gone!"

Eliot looked disgusted (which was, admittedly, his default expression when it came to Hardison). "Who eats that crap over the age of about six?"

"Hey!" Parker glared at him. "I like them!"

"Uh-huh. Course you do."

Parker just looked confused. "Why wouldn't _anyone_ like Lucky Charms? They have marshmallow."

"Exactly!" Hardison pointed at her triumphantly with his spoon. "Exactly my point!"

Eliot raised an eyebrow. "I thought milk was your point."

Hardison turned the spoon on him. "That was also my point." He looked at them both suspiciously. "Which of you two criminals took my damn milk?"

oOo

So, that was the story of the 2% milk. Which had gone off and been thrown away by Nate, and which led to a tortuously complicated and generally ignored memo from Hardison about the labelling and distribution of food in the office. After the 2% milk came Parker's missing lucky harness, and after Parker's missing lucky harness came Nate's mysteriously vanished bottle of 25-year-old Scotch (courtesy of Sophie, it turned out).

"…what you get for hanging out with thieves!" Nate was heard to mutter.

"…trust no-one," Hardison was heard to whisper, though it wasn't really clear if that was in relation to the spate of missing belongings or his longstanding, albeit one-sided, relationship with Gillian Anderson.

"…and then all the elephants died," Parker was heard to say. But nobody was really sure what that particular story was about.

So, the point of the 2% milk, and the missing lucky harness, and the mysteriously vanished bottle of 25-year-old, was that tensions were riding a little high in the Leverage office.

And then came the twenty-million-dollar Van Gogh painting. Which, naturally, given the nature of this story, was stolen.

oOo

"Did you steal the Van Gogh?" demanded Nate, waving a newspaper in front of Parker's face.

She looked partly offended and partly confused. "No. I'm not supposed to work on my own any more."

"It's your style," he said, and Parker's eyes narrowed as she grabbed at the paper.

"You're right," she said eventually, and scowled.

Nate gaped at her. "You're admitting it?"

"No! I mean, it's my style." She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Almost as if someone wanted people to think it was me. That's sneaky."

Hardison looked up from whatever he'd been doing on the computer (not a Gillian Anderson fanlisting, he didn't have one of those, that computer/sci-fi geek stereotype was so wrong and he was still pissed off at Eliot over the whole Klingon thing, because, dude, like Eliot'd be able to carry off… well, yeah, fine, he probably would be able to carry it off, whatever, that's not even the point, it's not a Gillian Anderson fanlisting, OK?).

"It was worth twenty mill," he offered, and Parker's face took on a wistful glow.

"I know. I wish it had been me."

oOo

And that was the twenty-million dollar (stolen) Van Gogh painting. Things settled down, though Nate still cast suspicious glances at Parker when he thought no-one was watching, and Hardison installed four surveillance cameras in the kitchen. And then came the Painted Ruby. Also stolen. Of course.

oOo

"Eliot!" shouted Sophie, storming into the office, so angry she was practically fuming. Eliot poked his head round the doorway as the others looked on, fascinated.

"Yeah?"

"Eliot!"

"Still here." Wisely, however, he didn't come completely into the room. Man wasn't a fool, and that was one riled up lady.

"What did you do with it? Hmm?" She had her hands on her hips now, which was a good sign because it meant she probably didn't have a knife. Or a gun.

"Uh, what did I do with what?"

Sophie shook her finger at him. "Oh, don't you try that with me, Eliot! I had a call from a very dear friend of mine. She's been working a con for _weeks_ to get that ruby, and then you swoop in at the last minute! Giving her, I might add, a very nasty headache in the process."

Hardison raised a tentative hand. "Uh, Sophie? Mind giving the rest of us the Cliff Notes version here?"

"What's going on?" Nate had wandered in as well, propping himself in the doorway, glass in hand.

"He," said Sophie, pointing at Eliot, "has stolen – no, sorry, Eliot, you 'retrieve', don't you? – the Painted Ruby."

"Yeah," said Hardison. "I don't know what that is."

"You and me both," muttered Eliot.

"The Painted Ruby," explained Sophie to Hardison, ignoring Eliot altogether, "is a giant – _giant!_ - ruby that was commissioned from Fabergé by Edward VII as a gift for a some rajah or other in India. It's in a gold case and is decorated with gold and diamonds and other lovely little things like that." She paid no attention to the little whimper Parker made. "It's _priceless_. And Eliot's got it."

"Actually, Sophie, I don't…"

"…didn't think we were supposed to be…"

"…all this happen anyway? I mean, I don't think…"

"…know why I ever thought that this would work when you're all…"

"I DON'T HAVE THE DAMNED RUBY!" Eliot strode fully into the room, his face flushed with anger. "I didn't even know it existed! I certainly didn't steal it! And unless it was already in the state, I don't know how I was supposed to, given that we were all here till past midnight."

There was a pause.

It lasted a little while. Sophie pressed her lips together.

"Well," she said eventually.

"That's true," she said, after another moment.

"Where _was_ the ruby stolen?" asked Nate curiously.

Sophie shrugged. "Bordeaux," she said reluctantly. Eliot waved an expressive hand in the air, turned on his heel, and walked out. Sophie bit her lip. "Maybe I should apologise?"

"Well, that might be a little bit of a plan," said Hardison. Parker nodded her agreement enthusiastically. Sophie hurried out after Eliot, and Nate sat down, his brow creased in thought.

"Parker," he began only to be interrupted by Hardison.

"What the hell?" Their resident computer geek began tapping away on the keyboard as an alert pinged.

"What is it?" asked Parker, kneeling up on the sofa to lean over his shoulder.

"Someone's messin' with the stock market. I've got shares spiking that shouldn't be doing anything, some weird activity; I'm telling ya, something's going down."

"So, it's your kind of thing," said Nate, putting his glass down on the coffee table with a determined thunk. Hardison look up, shrugged.

"Well, yeah. I mean… wait, you mean, is this me?" It wouldn't be possible for anyone to look more indignant than Hardison did in that moment, and Nate grinned.

"No. I don't think for a moment it's got anything to do with you. Or the Van Gogh with Parker…"

"Twenty million," sighed Parker.

"…or that ruby with Eliot. I think…"

"Someone's playing us," finished Sophie, coming back into the room, Eliot on her heels.

Nate nodded. "Playing us but good."

oOo

In the end, it wasn't hard to work it all out. It wasn't even a question of who could organise – or fake – the robbery of a twenty-million-dollar Van Gogh, or who could lean on a conman to produce the story about the Painted Ruby, or who could fiddle with the stock market. It just came down to who would want to.

oOo

"So, that went pretty well," said Nate.

"I liked the part with the monkeys," said Parker happily, swinging her legs against the side of the building.

"Now, why would you like the part with the monkeys?" demanded Hardison. "Freaky, creepy little dudes."

Parker's face was stern. "The monkeys were cute," she reiterated. Hardison held up his hands.

"Fine, whatever."

"Anyway, we certainly sorted out Sterling," said Sophie. She took off her high heels and wriggled down to sit next to Parker, determinedly not looking down. "Which is no more than he deserved after the way he tried to play us off against each other."

"I know," said Eliot drily. "Makin' out we were thieves. Of all the nerve."

"We've all learnt a lesson," announced Parker.

The others looked at her. Eliot raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"Uh, what lesson?"

"We're a team, and we should trust each other, and not shout." She smiled, oblivious to the looks she was getting. "And that together we can take out nasty little men like Sterling."

Nate shook his head in mock sorrow. "Sure is a shame he's never going to work in insurance again."

"A damn shame," put in Eliot.

"I wonder what he'll do now," said Sophie. "He was all about the job. Remember the time he spent five days in the trunk of a car?"

"Well," said Nate, smiling beatifically down on his team, "when an insurance career goes bust, I would always recommend setting up a criminal syndicate."

"God bless us all, every one!" shouted Parker, throwing her arms up in the air.

The others looked at her again.

"Muppet Christmas Carol," said Hardison, shaking his head.

oOo

And so that was the story of the 2% milk, of the missing lucky harness, and the mysteriously vanished bottle of 25-year-old Scotch, of the (stolen) twenty-million-dollar Van Gogh painting, and the Painted Ruby, and the stock exchange fiddling. And Sterling the insurance man, who ended up with a _lot_ of explaining to do. To his employers. And the FBI. And his grandmother. Who wasn't impressed with the monkeys. And it was also the story of Nate Ford and his team and how they learned how to trust each other.

THE END


End file.
